Finnish man ordered by court to pay alimony for a child resulting from his wife cheating: this week in the strange death of Europe

[laughing dog]

Well, okay. So do you believe it is necessary for the State to 'pin' the fatherhood on 'someone'? Why?

Under any system that supports a child, someone(s) gets pinned for paternal support: the parents (biological or social) or some other family members and/or taxpayers. Someone gets pinned or the child dies. That is not ______________ (you fill in the blank) - it is reality.

 

[Metaphor]

It's not okay, and it's rather arbitrary. But the trade-off is not between bio father and the (now unwilling) social father. The trade-off is between having mercy to those who miss deadlines, and attempting to avoid lengthy disputes over who the father is.

There's no dispute, or at least there wouldn't be in my proposed system. The cuckolded husband isn't the bio father nor did he agree to be the social father.

I'm trying to think of the worst case scenarios, if laws were such that the consent to fatherhood could be recalled more freely.

Consent must first be given to be recalled.

Right to have both parents is considered to be in the interest of the child.

But a child doesn't have that right, unless the State bans divorces, forces parents to live with each other, and prevents women from inseminating themselves without the sperm owner's permission and consent to be a father. And also prevents both parents from dying before the children are 18.

The OP case includes a man who did not consent to, and does not want to father, someone else's genetic offspring. There is no family law act that can change his feelings, including anything I could propose. Nor should there be.

After all, according to Toni and Jarhyn, the man is a monster for having the wrong feelings. And children shouldn't be raised by monsters.

 

[Metaphor]

Well, okay. So do you believe it is necessary for the State to 'pin' the fatherhood on 'someone'? Why?

Under any system that supports a child, someone(s) gets pinned for paternal support: the parents (biological or social) or some other family members and/or taxpayers. Someone gets pinned or the child dies. That is not ______________ (you fill in the blank) - it is reality.

"The parents" does not mean "paternal".

I know a lesbian couple with two children. There's no paternal support. One of the couple is the SAHM and the other works full time.

"The taxpayer" is not a parent. Part of my taxes go to support other people's children. Using general revenue to help fund welfare is nothing like singling out an individual to devote a large amount of material support to a child that he did not consent to.

So no: the state does not need to 'pin' fatherhood on anyone, especially in cases where people have arranged their affairs so there is no father that consented to the rights and responsibilities of fatherhood.

 

[laughing dog]

Well, okay. So do you believe it is necessary for the State to 'pin' the fatherhood on 'someone'? Why?

Under any system that supports a child, someone(s) gets pinned for paternal support: the parents (biological or social) or some other family members and/or taxpayers. Someone gets pinned or the child dies. That is not ______________ (you fill in the blank) - it is reality.

"The parents" does not mean "paternal".

I know a lesbian couple with two children. There's no paternal support. One of the couple is the SAHM and the other works full time.

"The taxpayer" is not a parent. Part of my taxes go to support other people's children. Using general revenue to help fund welfare is nothing like singling out an individual to devote a large amount of material support to a child that he did not consent to.

So no: the state does not need to 'pin' fatherhood on anyone, especially in cases where people have arranged their affairs so there is no father that consented to the rights and responsibilities of fatherhood.

Try to focus - someone(s) will have to pick up the tab. No amount of pedantry or nitpicking can change that.

 

[Toni]

It would have helped if you'd at least got the facts as far as we know them right. It was the wife who reportedly instigated divorce proceedings. She also later filed for sole custody. The husband stated that he wanted to continue to see the child. This has all been said in the thread.

Can you point to me where I said differently?

Well you said he divorced her, for starters, rather than the other way around or even 'they got divorced'. As to 'rejecting the child' that might also be more nuanced, it seems. You also said he has a choice as to whether to maintain a relationship with the child, and that's not clear, and it was the wife who asked for sole custody. And your modified use of the word monster (now you're saying monstrous) is still harsh, imo, all things considered. It's as if, like a few here, you only need to know the genders of those involved in order to more or less automatically decide which way your sympathies will lean. If no one had noted it, goodness knows how long it would have taken you to eventually get around to voicing even any criticism at all of the woman in this case. It's not so much just your imo harsh judgements of the man, as the ongoing lack of balance.

As far as I've seen, there is only one article linked, with slightly different version of the same article later on. To the best of my recollection, there is only one poster who offers up other details and a time line with NO SOURCE for these details. If I missed it, my apologies and as I've asked elsewhere, please point me to the SOURCE.

Clearly you only have read some of my posts and none of them well or else your own prejudiced blinders have kept you from actually comprehending what I wrote.

I fully understand why the husband is angry and feels betrayed at learning that a child he believed he had fathered and presumably loved and cared for was not biologically his. I think that it is indeed monstrous to punish the child by rejecting the child when the child is old enough to recognize the man as its father. I think the wife behaved horribly to withhold that information from her husband.

My concern is for the child much more than it is for either parent. If circumstances allowed things to be different--somehow the husband was able to substitute an infant he fathered with his mistress for his wife's dead newborn (a scenario I believe I described above) and the wife learned she was not the biological mother of the child or more realistically, if somehow the hospital made an error about parents/child (as has happened in the US, changing the way that hospitals identify mother/children, etc), and the mother wanted to reject the child she had loved and cared for for more than 2 years, I would also say that was monstrous. Children have feelings, form attachments, that are important to that child's development, sense of self, social and emotional and psychological development. To disrupt these because one parent is angry with the other, however justifiable the anger is monstrous. It's too important to the child's wellbeing. No, I'm not talking about money although that's all that men in this thread seem to care about.

Two years is a decent amount of time to challenge paternity. You yourselve have proposed a 1 or 2 year time limit upthread just a little ways, so surely you agree with that. I think that the Finnish law seems reasonable and just. From my understanding of events from the article in the OP, the man did not immediately seek to dissolve his parental ties to the child but waited some unknown period of time, until it was too late under Finnish law to challenge paternity legally.

You don't like me and you are unable to read anything I write fairly. You believe you know what I think and you are quite willing to ignore evidence that you are wrong.

 

[Toni]

(Now, I believe this woman probably needed to examine exactly why no man she had dated in her entire life wanted a child with her, or, alternately, why she rejected every man she dated as worthy of being a father, but we're not really here to discuss her).

Just on no man wanting a child with her, it is reported that she and the husband were trying (unsuccessfully) for a child.

And as to her 'rejecting every man', she had, apparently, deemed the lover a suitable, even 1st preference, partner/father, but presumably he didn't reciprocate (did not leave his wife for her and the baby, and has not as far as we know come to be with her and the child following his own subsequent divorce).

We don't know, but my guess is he (the lover) probably knew the baby was his, and he surely must know now. First, she may have told him during the affair that she and the husband could not conceive, and second, according to reports of what his later ex-wife told the cuckolded husband, she wanted him (the lover) to be with her, so letting him know who the biological father was (she herself apparently knew) would make more sense than concealing it from him. Or he may have guessed, either just from general circumstances or from seeing some resemblances in the child. I wonder how the conception happened? But that's something we don't know. The woman may not have had a deliberate, conscious plan in that regard. We can only speculate, but if the husband is in his 40's, and she a similar age, and they had not previously had a child, it was getting to the point where if they wanted one, then regardless of the psychologies and motivations involved, the clock was ticking.

I wonder whether the wife's lover and his own wife had any children themselves, and where they are now, after that divorce? It's possible she divorced him, having found out in 2016 about the affair and the paternity of the child here.

Messy stuff.

Where was that reported? Source.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Responsibility requires something to be responsible for. If he's not the father where's the obligation for him to be responsible for?

I thought he was the spouse of someone who gave birth. My bad.

So? That should not confer any obligation. Paternity should incur an obligation.

Being in a legal relationship with a person does not confer an obligation? Of course it confers an obligation, at least if I have a conscience. If all I'm thinking about is how butthurt I am then you have a point.

 

[TomC]

Right to have both parents is considered to be in the interest of the child.

Perhaps the word "right" isn't the best. It implies a legal right, which clearly can't be. I'd definitely go with "deserves", though.

Of course, it's not legally enforceable. But I do think people who Choose potentially fertile sex without considering how they'll provide a loving, secure, stable home for offspring are behaving in a dreadfully irresponsible and immoral way. Sadly, for the child in this case, none of the adults involved appear capable of competent parenting.

I soooo never want to be a judge in Family Court. People can be so stupid and it's always the child who gets victimized in the long run.
Tom

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

"The parents" does not mean "paternal".

I know a lesbian couple with two children. There's no paternal support. One of the couple is the SAHM and the other works full time.

"The taxpayer" is not a parent. Part of my taxes go to support other people's children. Using general revenue to help fund welfare is nothing like singling out an individual to devote a large amount of material support to a child that he did not consent to.

So no: the state does not need to 'pin' fatherhood on anyone, especially in cases where people have arranged their affairs so there is no father that consented to the rights and responsibilities of fatherhood.

Try to focus - someone(s) will have to pick up the tab. No amount of pedantry or nitpicking can change that.

I think he's focusing on the societal need for feral children.

 

[TomC]

So? That should not confer any obligation. Paternity should incur an obligation.

Being in a legal relationship with a person does not confer an obligation? Of course it confers an obligation, at least if I have a conscience. If all I'm thinking about is how butthurt I am then you have a point.

Does this only apply to men?

The reason I ask is because, as far as I can tell, Finnish law and Feminists only consider the male's obligations. Nothing about the scheming monster the guy used to be married to.

You know, the one who used a technicality to stick her ex with a €80K+ obligation(that's 380×12×18) to pay support on her fuckbuddy's kid?

Didn't her legal relationship come with any obligations?

Tom

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

So? That should not confer any obligation. Paternity should incur an obligation.

Being in a legal relationship with a person does not confer an obligation? Of course it confers an obligation, at least if I have a conscience. If all I'm thinking about is how butthurt I am then you have a point.

Does this only apply to men?

The reason I ask is because, as far as I can tell, Finnish law and Feminists only consider the male's obligations. Nothing about the scheming monster the guy used to be married to.

You know, the one who used a technicality to stick her ex with a €80K+ obligation(that's 380×12×18) to pay support on her fuckbuddy's kid?

Didn't her legal relationship come with any obligations?

Tom

Of course it does. I had a friend who hated his ex with such a passion that he committed suicide rather than have to live making payments to her for child support. He quit his job and became self employed so he could hide his income and did all manner of things before finally killing himself.

He was consumed with resentment. Too bad for the kids.

I have another friend who supported his three non-biological children after his divorce until they were eighteen and beyond. He's happily remarried and still alive.

 

[TomC]

Does this only apply to men?

The reason I ask is because, as far as I can tell, Finnish law and Feminists only consider the male's obligations. Nothing about the scheming monster the guy used to be married to.

You know, the one who used a technicality to stick her ex with a €80K+ obligation(that's 380×12×18) to pay support on her fuckbuddy's kid?

Didn't her legal relationship come with any obligations?

Tom

Of course it does. I had a friend who hated his ex with such a passion that he committed suicide rather than have to live making payments to her for child support. He quit his job and became self employed so he could hide his income and did all manner of things before finally killing himself.

He was consumed with resentment. Too bad for the kids.

I have another friend who supported his three non-biological children after his divorce until they were eighteen and beyond. He's happily remarried and still alive.

In what way is this relevant to the question I asked?
Tom

 

[fromderinside]

This thread isn't about what should be it's about what is in place. Current law includes the propositions that males are more equal, that males lead marriages, so one need to interpret the judgement from that perspective. What should be is an entirely different thing and should be addressed in a separate OP.

Everything you present is presented from false assumptions. Current law has no mechanisms to handle responsibility from causer outside the family unit. Find ways to handle personal behavior and preference and you'll need to invent a super computer the size of the world to deal with options.

Fine.

For the record. I'm repeating myself.

 

[fromderinside]

....

I fully understand why the husband is angry and feels betrayed at learning that a child he believed he had fathered and presumably loved and cared for was not biologically his. I think that it is indeed monstrous to punish the child by rejecting the child when the child is old enough to recognize the man as its father. I think the wife behaved horribly to withhold that information from her husband.

My concern is for the child .....

You don't like me and you are unable to read anything I write fairly. You believe you know what I think and you are quite willing to ignore evidence that you are wrong.

Fairly?

Your concerns come from your judgement of transactional decisions. Parents who stray usually keep missteps form 'loved' ones. Parents betrayed usually feel strong emotion when they find they've been betrayed. Monstrous and horrible are really extreme judgements about such.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I would like to see your evidence regarding this claim. What's your source?

My point is that we wouldn't expect to have many exonerations, thus the absence of exonerations says nothing about the accuracy of the original convictions.

Or, considering the myriad obstacles to successfully prosecuting a rape case, we can expect that the ones which resulted in a conviction had solid supporting evidence justifying the verdict, therefore we can expect exonerations to be rare.

Anyway, I would still like to see your source. Perhaps there's some good information in there.

I don't know what source you're asking for. Rape is a crime where you rarely have witnesses to recant and evidence to exonerate is basically never going to be found later. Unless the prosecution was royally messed up about the only way to have an exoneration is if she recants. Thus you would expect a very low exoneration rate and thus the exoneration rate isn't evidence as to the accuracy of convictions. You're the one claiming evidence, not me--I'm saying we have no yardstick! All we have are the number of cases shown up before trial--and there are far too many of those. The FBIs 8% figure is clearly low as it won't count the cases where her story falls apart before it gets to the FBI.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Does this only apply to men?

The reason I ask is because, as far as I can tell, Finnish law and Feminists only consider the male's obligations. Nothing about the scheming monster the guy used to be married to.

You know, the one who used a technicality to stick her ex with a €80K+ obligation(that's 380×12×18) to pay support on her fuckbuddy's kid?

Didn't her legal relationship come with any obligations?

Tom

Of course it does. I had a friend who hated his ex with such a passion that he committed suicide rather than have to live making payments to her for child support. He quit his job and became self employed so he could hide his income and did all manner of things before finally killing himself.

He was consumed with resentment. Too bad for the kids.

I have another friend who supported his three non-biological children after his divorce until they were eighteen and beyond. He's happily remarried and still alive.

In what way is this relevant to the question I asked?
Tom

The point I'm attempting to make is much larger and more important than the question you are asking. So, yes, it is relevant, specifically in how the welfare of the children is considered and how a parent, male or female, accepts responsibility for their obligations.

If my ex is a fuck or if the law is what it is, and if I have a conscience, how exactly should any of that affect my notion of personal responsibility and child welfare?

 

[fromderinside]

So? That should not confer any obligation. Paternity should incur an obligation.

Being in a legal relationship with a person does not confer an obligation? Of course it confers an obligation, at least if I have a conscience. If all I'm thinking about is how butthurt I am then you have a point.

Does this only apply to men?

The reason I ask is because, as far as I can tell, Finnish law and Feminists only consider the male's obligations. Nothing about the scheming monster the guy used to be married to.

You know, the one who used a technicality to stick her ex with a €80K+ obligation(that's 380×12×18) to pay support on her fuckbuddy's kid?

Didn't her legal relationship come with any obligations?

Tom

One needs to distinguish between moral and material rights and obligations.

So the answer to your question is not really. First it's not a feminist position. Second, the male is King according to originating law.

There are distinctions between material property and human property, human property usually can't be thrown away.

Ergo she's a slave with no rights or privileges, only marital obligations. All material rights and obligations fall on the man.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Well since the rules you have proposed remains blissfully vague, that involves some guesswork. That's your problem though, not mine.

That said, I have presented what believe to be such scenarios, you dodged the question every time.

I did not. I said 'the bio father declaring his fatherhood will not automatically nullify he social father's claims'.

I answered all your scenarios. You are being dishonest.

I'm pretty sure you didn't answer my scenarios. You may have said something like "well, that would be unfair, of course it wouldn't happen under my system because what I'm proposing is a fair system" - but that's not an answer, that's hand waiving in how vague it is. What's missing is a set of rules that produce the right outcome. You still owe us that.

Here's a couple more scenarios, or more explicit expositions of the ones brought up before:

• John and Mary have an open marriage. That means, John knows and approves that Mary occasionally hooks up with Tom, under the strict provision they always use condoms. One day, Tom and Mary's condom breaks, which she immediately confesses to John. When later they learn Mary is pregnant all three sit down on a table. They know there is a chance that Tom is the father, but decide to just assume John is and never go through the complicated route of having a paternity test, and having John adopt the child should it be Tom's - and more than anyone else, Tom is happy about the arrangement as it gets him off the hook. Years later, Tom secretly has a paternity test done, finds that he is indeed the biological father, and decides to use that knowledge to extort money from John and Mary, knowing that going to the court he could easily undermine John's relationship with his 10-year-old daughter.
• John and Mary want children, but John is infertile. Instead of shelling out 1000s or 10,000s of $ to fertility clinics, they decide to help themselves by more traditional means: Mary hooks up a few times with Tom, a mutual friend they trust, until she gets pregnant. Tom has agreed to the terms that he's acting more or less as a sperm donor, but none of this is recorded in writing or notarized. Five years later, John and Mary are pretty broke and decide to go after Tom for child support.
• John and Mary are a couple. One day, Mary is raped by Tom. Since she believes it wold be a he-says-she-says situation and doesn't want to re-ignite the trauma for nothing, Mary doesn't report Tom. When Mary finds she is pregnant, John and Mary know that there is an off chance that the rapist is the father. 10 years later, Tom, the rapist, finds out he may have fathered a child, secretly has a DNA test done, and now demands visitation rights. Given that a 10 year old rape case is even harder to prove and he would just say it was consensual, Mary has no choice but to let her rapist into her house to play with her child on a regular basis.

All of these are from simply dropping any kind of term limit and assuming, as the default, that a legal father (who has not given to protocol that he knows he is not the biological father) wants to skip his parental role and get the bio-dad on the hook when he finds out he's not the biological father. Call it "automatic transfer" or not, but without such an assumption (at least as the default, until and unless we have conflicting declarations from the parties involved), most of your objections collapse.

Personally, I don't think visitation should be granted in such long-hidden cases. There's no relationship to preserve.

As for case #2: It's happened, the sperm donor is screwed even when there was no intercourse involved.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The child is not a perpetrator, so the award of child support does not reward the perpetrator.

The woman is the perpetrator and she's rewarded by money that she now doesn't have to earn.

Do you think the woman will use 100% the money for manicures and extravagant hats, instead of the child?

Of course not. I'm saying that she now doesn't have to work as much to support her child and I can see no basis for attaching an obligation to a non-act.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In this case that would probably be the better outcome. But when it comes to a general case, its necessary to weigh this outcome to the potential side effects that extending or abolishing time limits might have. For example, a mother who knows that the husband is not the father could blackmail him indefinitely by threatening to challenge his fatherhood and take away the kid. Or a husband could force the wife to stay with him by threatening to leave her and the kid out to dry in case of a divorce.

Just because you can find crimes that it would permit to happen isn't a reason against it. You can't make crime impossible!

As for your first scenario--note that I have said that visitation should follow from an existing relationship even if no paternity is involved. As for the second--too bad. She should be able to take care of herself, go after the bio dad for the child support.

The intent of the law is to force parents to settle the dispute over parenthood quickly, so as not to cause disruption to the child. I'm not entirely sure if that's good, but that's why the legislation is what it is and is probably not going to be changed.

Disagree--it's just the usual statute of limitations.